(L to R) Director Bing Liu and actor Sebiye Behtiyar on the set of Preparation for the Next Life Jaclyn Martinez/Amazon Content Services Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text Understandably, Bing Liu is still on cloud nine over his storybook run at the end of the 2010s. His coming-of-age documentary, Minding the Gap, premiered at 2018's Sundance Film Festival to universal acclaim, taking home the special jury prize for breakthrough filmmaking. The aforementioned praise would eventually stretch well beyond the festival circuit as the film still holds a perfect mark on Rotten Tomatoes. 2018 would end with the first of several more exclamation points, beginning with former President Barack Obama's selection of Liu's doc as one of his favorite films of 2018. Related Stories Movies 'Preparation for the Next Life' Review: 'Minding the Gap' Director Bing Liu's First Narrative Feature Is a Haunting Outsider Love Story Movies 'All These Sons': Film Review | Tribeca 2021 Then, in 2019, Liu received an Oscar nomination for best documentary, as well as a Peabody Award. Thus, it's easy to see why he hasn't lost that surreal feeling in present day. "I'm still waking up a little bit. It was absolutely insane. This is going to sound weird, but I started a gratitude journal a couple years ago because I just feel so in awe that this is my life," Liu tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I got to make films like Minding the Gap and Preparation for the Next Life. So I don't think I've woken up yet, and I hope I never wake up." At 2018's Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, Liu was the recipient of Minding the Gap's jury prize for best feature documentary, and that's where he met juror Barry Jenkins. The Moonlight filmmaker strongly encouraged Liu to take the plunge into narrative features, and his company, Pastel, as well as Plan B, eventually recommended he pitch on an adaptation of Atticus Lish's celebrated novel, Preparation for the Next Life. The New York City-set adaptation chronicles an undocumented Uyghur woman (Sebiye Behtiyar's Aishe) and her whirlwind romance with a troubled American soldier (Fred Hechinger's Bradley Skinner). Liu's focused interpretation of the material ultimately won him the job, but he does acknowledge that Minding the Gap's exploration of his own family's immigration story likely inspired both production companies to consider him. "They probably did [recognize the overlap] in the sense of what Minding the Gap revealed about my life," Liu says. "I lived in a household where there was a somewhat toxic relationship between a white American man and a woman who immigrated from China and received citizenship through marriage with that man." Liu first started developing Preparation for the Next Life for the big screen in 2019, and at the time, he never could've anticipated that his narrative feature debut would hit theaters at such a fraught time for U.S. immigration. "I really hope this film helps humanize what people really sacrifice to try to make it in this country," Liu shares. "And that sacrifice isn't always socioeconomic. It can be a spiritual, emotional sacrifice, and that's hard to get back once you've sacrificed it." Minding the Gap documented not only Liu's challenging upbringing in Rockford, Illinois, but also the personal lives of two of his local skateboarding peers, Keire Johnson and Zack Mulligan. The beloved doc seems ripe for a follow-up down the road, and while he's already been approached about the possibility, Liu is currently of the mind that lightning doesn't strike twice. The primary reason why is that everyone involved would be more cognizant that they're shooting a highly anticipated documentary. Conversely, throughout Minding the Gap's production in the 2010s, nobody really knew what the future had in store for the doc, resulting in more authenticity. "People have asked, but I don't know if that's in the cards. It was such a specific moment to make Minding the Gap," Liu says. "Part of what people have told me works about it is that there's such a vulnerability and openness to it. It was made at a time when people were less media literate and less aware of their own authorship and representation. I feel like that's changed, and I don't know if it would work in the same way as The Up Series." For the uninitiated, The Up Series is a British documentary series that revisits the same subjects every seven years. "For me, it's less about what they're up to now; it's

MORE: 'Is there a question that burns as strongly as the one that was burning in me when I wanted to make Minding the Gap?'" Liu adds. "Moving forward, that question might ignite, but right now, I'm not sure if it has ignited." Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Liu also discusses Richard Linklater's influence on his filmmaking career,